Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers Part 28

There are many corpses, many crimes, many broken hearts, haggard faces and bitter disappointments on that road.

The man with the "Good-money-making idea" struggles on with it over the bodies of suicides and of those who have fallen in despair.

At the bottom of the road the murderer plies his trade with knife or poison--to make money. And the murderer who has tried for MUCH money calls forth special interest and special privileges, special new trials, special newspaper headings.

At the top of the road to wealth, another, more intelligent cla.s.s, work with equally remorseless energy. They murder no individual. But they rob entire cla.s.ses of society.

They tax others to fatten their pockets--they add to the cost of food that children eat--they coin human life into cash--smoothly and nicely, using law-makers as tools. Envy and admiration are theirs--such admiration as the retail murderer can never earn.

The struggle for money is the struggle of THE WHOLE WORLD to-day.

And of the money-making movement, as of ALL WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENTS, there is a side that is good and necessary.

Divine wisdom guides the world, and the human race, working out its destiny in seeming blindness, is not allowed to wander from the track of actual progress.

The money-making mania is one phase of human advancement.

This is the age of industrial progress. Money is simply the means of perfecting industry. It is human labor condensed and put into compact, transferable shape.

The man with the hundred millions can build the great railroad across the continent. There is no more important work now than the building of that road.

The man with the thousand millions can control the great oil trust and a dozen other trusts. He taxes the people--but his hundreds of millions do an important and necessary work.

It is well for us all that such a man has sacrificed health, digestion, happiness and all idea of self-indulgence to the acc.u.mulation of a vast industrial army of dollars.

The scramble for money, looked at without understanding, is a horrid sight. But horrid also is the sight of a battle that frees slaves.

When the battle of money shall end, the score will be on the right side of humanity's ledger.

A few forgotten billionaires will have struggled and died. Some millions of men will have died disappointed.

But industry will have been brought to perfection. Universities, libraries and other benefactions will abound, pleading for recognition of the money-making dyspeptics. Human ingenuity will have contrived some means for freeing men's minds from the dread of dest.i.tution.

The money struggle will have ended and humanity will be much better off, much further advanced--as it is at the end of all great and painful struggles.

WHITE-RABBIT MILLIONAIRES AND OTHER THINGS

The most wonderful thing in America is--what do you think? It is the absolute nullity of the man of many millions. It is the vapid colorlessness, the dull inactivity, the total lack of imagination among men whose power is unlimited. What possibilities are spread out before the man who by signing his name could set to work in any direction a million of his fellow men! The world stands ready to obey his orders; every law says that he shall have whatever he demands. Any conception born in his brain can become reality as soon as conceived. But there is no conception there.

These comments are written, not to scold, or complain, or suggest, but simply to express wonder.

What man of millions does anything that a white rabbit does not do?

One man--of a hundred millions at least--has become recently very conspicuous among his golden fellows.

How?

By undertaking a scheme to irrigate the desert of Sahara and give millions of fertile acres to humanity?

No.

By calling together, at his expense, the ablest thinkers of the world to discuss and to solve, if possible, the social questions that so deeply concern the millionaire's future?

No.

By seeking, through study and experiment, to abolish child-labor, to promote public education, to encourage science art or American inventiveness?

No.

This millionaire, much discussed because of his piquant originality, has put on a dress coat with two pointed tails behind, and, geared in a white s.h.i.+rt front and white tie, with silk socks highly colored and patent leather shoes, this splendid American product has led a cotillon and has led a cakewalk.

Grand, splendid, magnificent, inspiring, isn't it?

What lop-eared, mild-eyed rabbit dancing in a clover field with a full paunch need fear comparison with this man of millions?

Old Jacques Coeur, of France, giving his fleets to his country--there was a man of millions and imagination combined.

But his kind has died out, and in his place we have a herd of overfed, sleek, timorous, hopping white rabbits, h.o.a.rding their piles of gold, s.h.i.+vering at the mention of change or innovation, asking only for peaceful possession, as free from thought as the fat oyster in his bed.

What wonderful things, what useful things, what dangerous things could these all-powerful men do?

What could they not do? They DO nothing.

NO HAPPINESS SAVE IN MENTAL AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY.

Bresci, who murdered the Italian King, is sentenced to solitary confinement for life. While you read this he sits on a narrow plank in a cell not much bigger than a sleeping-car section.

If you talk to any friend about Bresci--and especially if you mention the subject to any young man inclined to be idle--call attention to this point. You can amplify what must be presented briefly here.

Bresci's imprisonment is torture--why?

Because it sentences him to DO NOTHING.

Every man put on this earth is put here for a purpose. He is put here to work, to struggle, to interest himself in his fellows, to share the pleasures and disappointments of others. The wise laws ruling the universe fill us with a DESIRE to do that which we were meant to do. It is intended that we should be active here, and, therefore, although we often fail to realize it, our happiness lies in activity.

Bresci is to be tortured beyond the power of imagination because he will be forbidden to follow nature's law. He will be forbidden to fulfill man's destiny here. His brain, his muscles, his sentiments must lie idle until death or insanity shall come to relieve him. ----

Bresci will live on bread and water--but it is not the bread and water that will make his life worse than death. He could be happy on such simple fare if his mind had work to do. Many a man has done his good work and enjoyed life's greatest pleasures while suffering mere hunger or poor fare.

Many men would be happier if they could see Bresci, the murderer, forced into that idleness which is sometimes ignorantly desired.

In his prison Bresci is protected from the sun and the rain and the cold. He can sleep as many hours as he likes. No duns can trouble him. He pays no rent. There is absolutely nothing that he MUST do. But there is absolutely nothing that he CAN do.

The saddest slave in Morocco toiling under the heaviest load would win Bresci's grat.i.tude if only he would let Bresci carry that load.